Chapter 23

Ashley's PoV

"I got it!" I yelled as I heard the doorbell ring, jumping off of the couch; I had been pretending to read a book in the front room. I already knew who it was and was excited and nervous. Especially nervous. As I swung open the heavy front door, I couldn't help but smile at the sight of the three before me. I also couldn't help but jump on Jacob when he walked through, giving him a hug that made him chuckle before returning it.

"Ashley, dear, who was at the door? Oh!" my mother came around the corner, and I immediately let go of Jake, my face burning.

"Mom, you remember Ellie, right?" I could tell she didn't, not really, but nodded politely all the same. Trust my mother to forget my best friend.

"Nice to see you again, Mrs. Tannon," she held out her hand, which my mother seemed to take reluctantly.

"Are you sick!?" my mother demanded suddenly, pulling her hand back. I had forgotten all about their temperature. Apparently, so had Ellie.

"No, I'm just not used to the warm temperatures, from living up North," my mother pursed her lips together, but said no more on the subject, although she refused to touch the boys' hands when I introduced them. I saw Embry's arm wrap protectively around Ellie at my mom's coldness.

"And this is Ellie's imp- boyfriend, Embry, and his brother, Jacob," I smiled unconsciously as I said Jacob's name; I saw Mom's sharp eyes dart from me to Jake and back again.

"It's nice to meet you, ma'am," he said politely, not stupid enough to offer his hand to mom after her original reaction to Ellie. My mother didn't respond, but she did look Jake up and down, scrunching up her face distastefully at his cut-off jeans and t-shirt. I wanted to scream in frustration at my stuck-up mother. Jake seemed to have no problem staying calmer than me, although his face looked a little flushed.

"Were you expecting company, Ashley?" I opened my mouth to reply, but Ellie answered before I could.

"No, ma'am, she wasn't. I'm visiting my father this Christmas, and I wanted to see if Ash would want to hang out with us; she said we could drop by any time when I last talked to her. Is this a bad time?" she asked, peering into my mother's face.

"Well," I looked at her imploringly at mom, my eyes begging 'please?' "I'm sure you'll have fun, go on. We can have 'family time' tomorrow. I have a few properties that I wanted to look over anyway," she smiled slightly, and shooed me out the door. Thank goodness.

"Thank you so much for saving me!" I exclaimed as the four of us were walking down the driveway. Ellie rolled her eyes at me.

"You'd have been fine; stop being so melodramatic."

"Look who's talking," Embry teased, throwing his arm around his girlfriend. She playfully punched him, pretending to be outraged.

"And, here, I thought you loved me just the way I am," she pouted.

"Of course I do, sweetheart, you're the one for me. Flaws and all," he leaned in to kiss her, but she pulled back, punching him in the arm again.

"Oh, so now I have flaws!?"

"Yes, and I love them all!" He exclaimed, kissing her nose before she could pull away again.

"Ugh, why do you have to be so darn adorable?" She groaned out, rolling her eyes again.

"Because that's why you love me, and you wouldn't be able to put up with me any other way!" Embry stated with a cheeky grin. She nodded in agreement before leaning slightly up to kiss him, which proceeded to turn into a making-out session. I turned to Jake, who had been watching the exchange between our friends. I felt my face burn in embarrassment.

"Hey, guys, break it up! This is, after all, a public street." They pulled apart, Jake reaching over to shove Embry, playfully, but Jake ended up knocking him into Ellie, by accident. Making Embry immediately lose his smile and started growling. I jumped; having never heard anything like that before. Jake was in front of me answering with a growl of his own. Ellie appeared between the two, a hand on each of their chests, pushing them apart.

"Chill, boys," she stated calmly. "Everything is fine. We are both fine. Now calm down." Both of them seemed to relax, and they straightened out of their defensive positions.

"Sorry, man," Jake murmured.

Embry nodded in agreement, "Me too."

"Okay, so where do you ladies want to go?" Embry asked, acting as if their stand-off hadn't happened seconds ago. My eyes met Ellie's; we had already had an idea, but first we had to get rid of the boys.

"We wanted to head toward the mall, but why don't you guys find us a restaurant for us to eat at afterwards?"

"No way in hell," Jake stated immediately. "We're going with you."

"Come on, we don't want to bore you two," I told Jake and Embry, slightly desperate. They couldn't come with us. Seriously, what guy wants to go shopping with two teenage girls?

"We don't mind," Jake insisted back.

"Jake, please," I sighed.

The whole reason for this outing was so Ellie and I could go shopping for them. I wanted to go shopping for Jake, and I knew that Ellie wanted to find something for Embry. Although I had no idea what to get him; what do you get your imprint friend, when you want to tell them that you want to be more than friends? That's right, I want to see if Jake and I could be more than just friends, because, after all, nearly every other imprinting couple that I know fell in love. And I did love him in a more-than-friendly way. I was just hoping that he still felt the same way. He seemed happy staying friends…

"Okay, how about this; you can tag along, but we have to split up at some point. Just trust me," Ellie said, seeming to sense that they weren't going to give up easily. Her eyes caught Embry's, and they stayed like that for a few seconds before he nodded slowly.

"Good, then it's settled," she stated, satisfied. The boys, however, were exchanging wary looks over her head. And that's how I ended up walking around the local mall about an hour later, with three over-protective werewolves.

We managed to convince the boys to go and eat at the food court. Ellie kept assuring Jake that she could take care of me. Right, because I'm a two year-old that constantly needs to be watched.

"Well, who's going to watch after you?" Embry asked, quietly, concern evident in his eyes.

"I'll be fine. You're not that far away," she insisted. "We'll meet you in an hour, no biggie."

---------------------

"Hey, Ash, I'm gonna look over here," Ellie called out pointing towards the clothes section. I nodded absently, looking over some electronics in the back of the story. Our allotted hour was almost up, and I had absolutely no idea what to get Jake.

"Will you be okay for a few minutes?" Really? I don't need protection by werewolves 24/7! I have been on many shopping trips on my own, and I'm still standing here today, aren't I?

"I'll be fine, all three of you worry too much!" She smiled slightly at that.

"But, you don't fully understand, Jake would kill me if anything at all happened to you," she added, seriously.

"Sure, sure," I responded, turning my eyes back to the shelves, looking through some CDs, but really, I still had absolutely no idea what to get him. Why were guys so darn hard to shop for?! I had even asked Jacob what he wanted for Christmas, but he had responded with 'I don't need anything, I have all that I could want here,' and then he leaned down to place a kiss on my forehead.

While I agree that this is very sweet, it gets me nowhere. I did know that now that Jake was in my life, I never wanted him to leave me again. My heart nearly broke at the thought. But he was going to have to go, wasn't he? This thought made my smile disappear. I couldn't imagine my life without Jake, and not to mention Ellie and even Embry. Suddenly, in the middle of my silent despair, it hit me, the perfect present. But it was pretty darn risky. I would be good, but only if Jake feels the same way about me that I feel about him.

I began grinning idiotically all the same as I ran to the clothes to find Ellie.

"Ell-" I must have not been looking where I was going and hit a brick wall, because I had fallen flat on my back. I looked up to see that I hadn't hit something, but someone.

"Oh, I'm so sorry; I wasn't looking where I was going," I said, as I lifted myself off of the floor. I tried to get a closer look at the person. They were nearly covered from head to toe, even though the weather was very balmy. They took off their scarf and hat.

"Oh." I then realized that it was a woman that I had run into, and she was probably the most beautiful woman that I had ever seen. She had the type of beauty that people starved themselves and paid millions of dollars in plastic surgery for. Even though she was so beautiful, I felt myself start to back away, unconsciously.

"I am sorry," I muttered again, and then I turned away from her to call Ellie again. I didn't know why, but she gave me a bad feeling. Something wasn't quite right about her. I could feel the woman's eyes following me as I hurried away as fast as I could. I think it was her eyes that scared me the most. They were black as pitch and full of a dark turmoil of emotions.

Ellie, I smiled in relief as I saw the familiar tall, dark-haired form. She smiled as she saw me approaching, but as I got within a meter of her, her smile suddenly disappeared, and was replaced by worry, fear, and anger.

"El-"

"Did you run into anyone- just now?" she demanded, in a shaky whisper. And I saw her take in a quick breath over my hair.

"Yes, how did you know, there was this woman-"

"What did she look like?" She was starting to scare me, what was this all about? I'd never seen her face so grave and serious.

"Um, tall, beautiful, so beautiful… She was covered in a lot of clothes, and I couldn't see her hair, it was covered with a scarf. And her eyes," I shuddered at the memory. "They were pitch black, very scary." I barely finished my last word, before Ellie had grabbed my elbow and was painfully pulling me out of the store, almost faster than my legs could keep up.

We walked; or rather she dragged me, silently across the floor towards the food court. I was pretty much running and couldn't catch my breath to ask her what the hell was going on. When we reached the two very boys at the too-small plastic table they both looked up from their food, relief clear on their features.

"Thank God, we were about to call out a search party-" Embry began.

"Ellie, what the hell are you doing?" Jake interrupted angrily, but he stopped at the look on her face.

"We can't talk here, we have to go," she stated quickly and quietly, constantly looking over her shoulder. "Ash ran into an old friend," she added in answer to their worried looks. Jake suddenly appeared next to me, faster than the blink of an eye, and I jumped hearing a low growl in his chest as he picked me up and hustled me out of the mall faster than I thought possible.

"Jake, what's going on? What are you guys talking about?"

"Not here," he murmured in a barely controlled voice. The motion was beginning to make me sick. I wasn't used to moving this fast. I tucked my head into his chest, wrapping my arms around his neck. I had no idea what was going on, and frankly, I didn't know if I wanted to find out.

----------------------------

A/N: I am very sorry that it's been so long since I've updated. If anyone is still reading this, then, you won't want to hear my excuses. The pity party is on my profile if you care. Thanks to all who have reviewed so far. Especially wingedvamp1107 because that review helped to snap me back to reality- seeing that people really were waiting for me to get my act together and update.

Also, a gigantic thank you to alicebrandoncullen my amazing beta, who will definitely help with my horrid spelling and grammar. Yay! You should definitely check out her stories, so awesome. And no, I'm not biased they really are the best. Here's a plus, alicebrandoncullen, free advertising, got to love it!

Also, there's a new poll up on my profile. If anyone enjoys my writing (which I can't imagine, personally) then check it out. I'm trying to decide between a Kim/Jared story (which I'm favoring at the moment) or a Seth/imprint post-Breaking Dawn story (the preview I've mentioned earlier). They will be my next story after this one, because I feel we are just around the corner from its end. I'd love to see some opinions.

Okay, I believe this monologue is at its end. And although I know that I don't deserve them I will still ask, nay, beg your kind hearts to review. Pretty please with chocolate chips, whipped cream, and a cherry on top?